


The Hanged Man

by tinydooms



Series: We Three Together [1]
Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Series
Genre: F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-Romance, Processing Trauma, defiant makeover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23609095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinydooms/pseuds/tinydooms
Summary: Evelyn Carnahan haunted him, with those gorgeous green eyes and soft pink lips. What kind of a girl marched into a prison and saved a man’s life on his word alone? And why the hell did she want to go out to Hamunaptra? Neither of the Carnahans struck Rick as the adventuring type. Jonathan may have spent time on digs, but he was prepared to put money down that Evelyn hadn’t. He was equally certain that she would head out there whether Rick went along or not.
Relationships: Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Rick O'Connell
Series: We Three Together [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714483
Comments: 27
Kudos: 107





	The Hanged Man

**The Hanged Man**

_Cairo, October 1922_

“Cut him down!” 

The words rang down from the balcony, just audible through the blood pounding in O’Connell’s ears. The rope around his neck went slack; he fell hard again for the second time in several seconds, and sprawled half-dead on the hay-strewn ground beneath the gallows. A ringing filled his ears: his own heartbeat and the cheering of the crowd at his reprieve. Twisting around, Rick looked out and up, up to where Evelyn Carnahan stood smiling down on him like some smug green eyed angel. 

Of course he didn’t know her name then. Introductions were made later, in the street outside of the prison, where they were unceremoniously thrust after the restraints were removed from Rick’s arms and legs and his few personal possessions (keys, wallet) were returned to him. Rick leaned against the wall as his rescuer talked at him. 

“My name is Evelyn Carnahan,” she said in that crisp English voice. “This is my brother, Jonathan. We’ll need a week at least to prepare for the dig. There are tools to buy, and supplies--Does a week suit you, Mister…?”

“O’Connell,” Rick rasped. His stomach was roiling. “Rick O’Connell.”

“Mr. O’Connell. As I was saying, a week should be sufficient for us to prepare. I will give you £10 and we will meet at the Port Office in Giza--”

“Excuse me.” 

Rick lurched away from the siblings, stumbling towards a convenient refuse heap. He only barely made it before puking. He felt hot and sick, the memory of the rope, the drop, strangling at him, and he coughed before retching again. There really wasn’t much in him to bring up, but Rick stayed doubled up, half-collapsed against the wall, waiting for the nausea to pass. 

“Mr. O’Connell,” Evelyn Carnahan began, her voice hesitant, and Rick heard her brother shush her. 

“Here,” Jonathan Carnahan, sneak thief, thrust a pocket flask under O’Connell’s nose. “It’s brandy. Drink up, old chap.” He hovered, bobbing awkwardly, then danced a few steps back as though remembering Rick’s fist to his jaw. “Er, we’re currently staying at Fort Brydon, so you can look us up there anytime; otherwise we’ll see you at the Port Office Tuesday next.”

Rick sloshed the brandy down his aching throat. “Yeah. Great.”

And so they left him with ten pounds and his life. Rick leaned on the wall and watched the Carnahans go off, quietly bickering. They turned a corner and he let his head fall back against the wall. The prison door opened and a guard stuck his head out. 

“You still here, pig? You can come back inside if you like!”

Rick O’Connell pushed himself off the wall and took himself away. 

*

It seemed surreal to find his pathetic little room laid out exactly as he had left it two days ago, but nothing about that day felt real. Rick checked his drawers and satisfied himself that no one had touched either his underwear or his guns before collapsing onto his uncomfortable bed. 

He slept like the dead until the next morning, and for a moment after waking, Rick had no idea where he was. Then it came back to him: the hanging, Evelyn Carnahan’s glowing eyes, the proposed safari to Hamunaptra, the brandy Jonathan had given him. Rick snapped awake and groaned. His head and neck were killing him, the muscles so tight that he could barely turn his head. The place where the rope had strangled him burned. Rick rolled off of his bed and sat on the floor, cradling his head in his hands. _Shit fuck_ **_ow_ **. It took everything he had to stagger to his feet, but Rick gritted his teeth and, putting one foot in front of the other, forced himself to get up and get moving. 

The boarding house he lived in had running water, but only barely. Still, Rick stood under the shower’s lukewarm stream for a long time. It was good to wash away the dirt and grime of the prison, but he knew that this was far from enough. The water went some way in relaxing the muscles in his neck and back, but it didn't do anything for the tell-tale itch in his scalp. It was time to bring out the big guns. 

The ten pounds Evelyn Carnahan had given him were still in the pocket of his ruined pants. Rick took the money and tottered out into the world. 

The barber on the corner gave him a shave and a proper haircut (his first in months) and weeded the crawlers out of his hair, humming his disapproval. Rick almost fell asleep again under his ministrations, dozing under the hot towel folded over his face. He looked like a new man when the barber had finished with him, trim and handsome and not at all like the borderline-alcoholic who led rich tourists out to the Pyramids and got arrested for brawling. Looking at himself in the barber’s speckled mirror, Rick wondered how he had let himself go so badly. 

The look on Evelyn Carnahan’s face at the prison haunted him. She had looked at him like he was a criminal, a simpleton. Well, who the hell was she, anyway? Just some rich, gorgeous girl who wanted to go on an adventure and had saved his life in the process. It wasn’t the first life debt Rick had incurred; maybe she would even live to let him repay it. He shoved the thought away and, paying the barber, limped out into the street. 

Two hours later Rick emerged from the local baths a new man, feeling a bit more human in his worn khaki pants and cotton shirt. The baths had been exactly what he needed: hot and cold running water, and lots of it, and he’d even used some of Evelyn Carnahan’s money to treat himself to a massage. The attendant’s strong hands had worked out the worst of the knots in Rick’s neck and back, and he had even produced a soothing salve for the rope burn. Rick was not above paying for necessary luxuries. Now he needed food and a long nap. Rick grabbed a couple of schawarmas from a small cafe and went home. 

*

Rick spent the rest of the week preparing for the upcoming trek to Hamunaptra and recovering from the dubious pleasures of Cairo Prison. The funny thing about being hanged was how the memory of it stuck to you. Rick was not unused to unpleasant memories intruding on his peace--the Great War and what he had seen during it and after were kept in a tightly lidded box accessible only in his nightmares--but it was damned inconvenient to suddenly remember a sharp drop and sudden stop while eating breakfast or trying on new shirts. Once or twice Rick woke in a cold sweat, gasping for breath and filled with the desperate need to _do_ something, although he could never be clear on what. 

Evelyn Carnahan haunted him as well, with those gorgeous green eyes and soft pink lips. What kind of a girl marched into a prison and saved a man’s life on his word alone? And why the hell did she want to go out to Hamunaptra? Neither of the Carnahans struck Rick as the adventuring type. Jonathan may have spent time on digs, but he was prepared to put money down that Evelyn hadn’t. He was equally certain that she would head out there whether Rick went along or not. 

The truth of the matter was, Rick was almost afraid to go back to the City of the Dead. He had been against it the first time, when his Legion commander convinced the garrison that there were riches untold buried under the sands just there for the taking. Look where that had gotten them. Two hundred men dead, and for what? Strange sounds in the night and a palpable sense of evil that had followed him well out into the desert? There was something out there and Rick had no desire to find out what. 

Still, he was a man of his word, and there was the not insignificant fact to consider that without Evelyn Carnahan’s interference, he would be dead now. Come hell or high water, he would see this through.

And he would, Rick decided, look like a respectable son of a bitch doing it. 

Ten pounds was a lot of money, more than Rick had had in one go for a long time. He took some of it and went to a tailor for new clothes, then went through the souk for hair pomade and aftershave. There was also ammunition to buy, and a new waterproof duffle bag to carry his guns in. On the Monday night before the trek, Rick carefully packed the bag full of his guns (pistols, rifle) and ammunition, as well as a couple of knives, a change of clothes, and his shaving tackle. When he rose in the early morning light, he shaved carefully and pomaded his hair. Hedonned khaki pants so new they were still crisp, a snowy white shirt, and a linen safari jacket, and knotted a new blue kerchief around the raw place made by the hangman’s noose. Rick wore his shoulder holsters concealed under the jacket, just in case. He laced his newly polished boots and hefted the duffel bag and, taking a deep breath, strode out into the day. Time to go. 

Giza Port was teeming with people, the usual chaos of a ship, in this case the Nile cruiser _Sudan_ , loading up. O’Connell made his way through the masses, striding with an easy authority that parted the way ahead of him like Moses and the Red Sea. The Carnahans were easy to spot, dressed in pale linen safari clothes, Evelyn with a straw hat set at a jaunty angle on her head. Strangely, she seemed to be carrying all of their luggage; Jonathan ambled along beside her, arms swinging at his sides. They were talking as they went by; Rick lengthened his stride to catch up to them and heard Evelyn’s voice drifting back towards him. 

“--filthy, rude, a complete scoundrel; I don’t like him one bit.”

“Anyone I know?” Rick asked, and was gratified when the siblings leaped around and boggled at him. Evelyn’s face went slack, her jaw falling and her gorgeous eyes going wide, and Rick felt a surge of smugness that he didn’t let show on his face. He raised his eyebrows at her in exaggerated innocence. 

Evelyn Carnahan dropped her bags. “Um, hello,” she stammered, her voice suddenly soft and light. 

Jonathan was not so easily startled. He smacked Rick’s chest and shook his hand. “Smashing day for the start of an adventure, eh, O’Connell?”

“Yeah, smashing,” Rick replied without humor, and made a show of checking his breast pocket for his wallet. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Jonathan, but he didn’t trust Jonathan. But the Englishman just waved a hand. 

“Oh, I’d never steal from a partner, partner.”

Rick managed a chuckle. “That reminds me, no hard feelings for the--” he took a mock-swipe at Jonathan’s face. 

“Oh, no, no, happens all the time.”

 _I’ll bet it does_ , Rick thought, turning to look again at Evelyn. She was still looking up at him in wide-eyed astonishment, but her eyes narrowed as Rick looked at her. 

“Mr. O’Connell, can you look me in the eye and guarantee me that this isn’t all some kind of a--a flim-flam? Because if it is I’m warning you I’ll--”

“You’re _warning_ me?” Rick really had to hand it to her; she wasn’t lacking in audacity. “Lady, let me put it this way. My whole damn garrison believed in this so much that without orders they marched halfway across Libya and into Egypt to find that city, and when we got there, all we found was sand and blood.”

That gave her a pause. Satisfied that he had made his point--both of his points, really--Rick bent down and reached for her suitcases. “Let me get your bags.”

And, hefting them, Rick O’Connell walked up the _Sudan’s_ gangplank and into his next adventure.

Author's Note: Ah, "The Mummy", the movie equivalent of a warm hug. I've watched probably too many times since the start of quarantine. I hope that you like this missing scene! Writing in Rick's voice was a lot of fun. In Tarot the hanged man means, among other things, surrender, letting go, and new perspectives. Please let me know what you think in the comments! And as always, thanks for reading! 


End file.
